Judgment

HEGDE, J. :- On September 12, 1963, the Government of Punjab passed the following order:

"Subject : Reservation for the members of Scheduled Castes. Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes in promotion cases.

Sir,

I am directed to refer you to the subject noted above and to any that at present reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes is applicable to new appointments and not to promotions which are governed by consideration of merit and seniority alone. Since those castes/ classes are poorly represented in various services in the upper grades under the State Government, it has been under the active consideration of Government that some reservation in higher grade posts as well should be made for them. It was now been decided that except in the case of All India services 10 per cent. of the higher posts to be filed by promotion should be reserved for the members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes (9 per cent. for the members of Scheduled . Castes and Scheduled Tribes and 1 per cent for the Backward Classes) subject to the following conditions:

(a) the persons to be considered must possess the minimum necessary qualification; and

(b) they should have at least a satisfactory record of service."

2. Up till that date reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes was confined to initial recruitment. The first out of every five initial recruitments was reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or other Backward Classes.

3. On January 14,1964, the Government clarified its order dated September 12, 1963. In this case we are not concerned with the first paragraph of that clarification. The second paragraph of that clarification reads thus:

"Government have since then been receiving references from several quarters seeking clarification in regard to the implementation of the said decision. After careful consideration of the matter, it has now been decided that:-

(a) The said decision should be applied to all promotion posts already vacant on 12th September, 1963, or falling vacant thereafter.

(b) The reservation should not imply that 10 per cent. of the total posts reserved for promotion in any cadre have to be filled by Scheduled Castes personnel in the sense that all existing/future vacancies will be filled up by Scheduled Castes/Tribes and other Backward Classes candidates until their share in higher services comes up to 10 per cent.

(c) This provision of reservation applies to all State services including Classes I, II, III and IV posts, the only exception being All India Services.

(d) This reservation should apply even in the case of short term leave vacancies unless it is likely to involve unnecessary dislocation of work in different offices and avoidable expenditure and inconvenience due to midyear transfers, etc.

(e) So far as Scheduled Castes/ Tribes are concerned, the very first vacancy existing on/arising after the 12th September, 1963, should be treated as reserved for them and only if no such official is available for promotion against the vacancy reserved for them in the first block of 10 vacancies, a candidate belonging to other Backward Classes may be selected in preference to the remaining officials against one such post only out of one hundred, since the reservation for other Backward Classes may not exceed 1 per cent. However, if Scheduled Castes/Tribes candidates are available to fill one out of every ten vacancies, the specific reservation in favour of other Backward Classes should be the 51st vacancy.

(f) One reserved vacancy should be carried over to the next block of ten vacancies in case it cannot be filled up within any block of ten posts. Thus if no Scheduled Castes/Tribes/ Backward Classes candidate is promoted against any of the first 10 vacancies the number of vacancies available to such candidates in the following block will be two.

(g) In case an out of turn promotion has already been given to a candidate belonging to Sched